


No Fucking Way

by dayneschiele



Series: The good thing about this cast is I can still hold a knife. [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drinking, Happy Ending (Probably), Illegal Activities, Keith cares a lot, Keith plays guitar, Langst, M/M, Modern AU, PINING KEITH, Referenced biphobia/homophobia, Sad lance, Underage Drinking, alcohol use, band au, bassist!Lance, drummer!hunk, inspired by Twin Sized Mattress by The Front Bottoms, klangst, lance’s dad is a dick, pidge plays the keyboard, really sappy and kind of me just having a lot of feelings, sad keith, vocalist!Shiro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 14:47:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12344787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayneschiele/pseuds/dayneschiele
Summary: “I can’t believe you can drink that.” Lance continued, apparently intent on getting a rise out of the other. “You have terrible taste.”‘Yeah, maybe,’ Keith didn’t say, because he wasn’t thinking about his drink. “I’ve watched you funnel tequila.” He replied instead, voice flat although he did have to admit that it had been kind of impressive and strangely attractive. That is, until Lance fled the room about an hour later to revisit his lunch in the toilet. “Don’t talk to me about having bad taste.”





	No Fucking Way

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so this is probably going to be part of a series of multiple unrelated works inspired by songs by The Front Bottoms because I have a serious problem and can’t stop myself. You should listen to the song this fic is inspired by: Twin-Sized Mattress.
> 
> Also, the gang has known each other for a few years, just to give you some background.

* * *

_This is for the lions living in the wiry, broke down frames of my friends’ bodies._

* * *

 

So, the band wasn’t taking off the way they had hoped for it to. It shouldn’t have been a big deal; they weren’t expecting to blow up overnight, after all, and each of them had other things going on outside of their music that they could and should be focusing on. Except with all the flyers they’d put up and the continuous posts without shares on Facebook and other media, they were feeling the first waves of defeat.

“Well, this sucks.” Pidge was the first to comment, having somehow spread herself over the entirety of Shiro’s couch despite the fact that she was quite possibly the tiniest barely-adult Keith had ever seen. “We played to a handful of drunkards who couldn’t care less whether or not we were there.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Lance began, and everyone knew there was a ‘but’ coming, “ _but_ there was that one guy who bought me a beer and danced to half of our set.” He was currently sitting atop the island counter, one hand wrapped loosely around his vodka-cranberry. They had all decided that cheap, poorly crafted mixed drinks were necessary to help them lick their wounds.

Keith regarded the bassist with a flat look, lids drooping with the weight of his lacking enthusiasm. He was perched on a _stool_ at the island, like a civilized human, with one elbow propped on the counter while the other hand held a whiskey and Coke steady on his thigh. “You mean the guy that was trying to take you home?”

Lance scoffed, one of his heels swinging back a bit too hard and ‘ _thudding_ ’ against Shiro’s poor, abused island. How Lance could get away with mistreating the man’s kitchen counter was beyond Keith. Not to mention the fact that Lance was dangerously close to sitting on his shoulder, but Keith hadn’t made any moves to relocate as of yet. “Are you kidding? He was old enough to be my dad. I think he really liked our show.”

Keith rolled his eyes. No way was Lance genuinely _that_ blind, especially not when he received as much attention as he did. “Really? Because he asked me for your phone number when I was packing up the set.”

Pidge snorted, soon breaking into peals of laughter as she tried and failed to stifle her amusement by sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. “You too, huh?” She asked between breaths. “He interrupted my conversation with the owner just to ask me.”

Lance was practically gaping, his mouth forming a soft ‘O’ in disbelief as his gaze shifted between Pidge and Keith. It might have been comical if Keith wasn’t so ruffled about the entire situation—sure, they all knew that Lance got hit on plenty, but when potential suitors started asking _him_ for the bassist’s direct line, he got annoyed. He didn’t care to know who wanted their hands down Lance’s, honestly, too-tight pants.

“I figured that one might be a problem,” Shiro sighed, speaking up for the first time since the conversation started. He had snagged himself a recliner, which only proved to make him look even more like a disappointed dad when coupled with a hand pressed over much of his face. “That’s why I asked you to help me load the trailer, Lance.”

“Wait—so everyone knew about this _except me_?” Lance crowed, brows tugged upward in surprise. “Hunk, buddy, tell me you were just as oblivious,” and he was practically pleading now, looking dangerously close to downing the rest of his drink in anticipation of making himself a vodka-not-so-cranberry just to cope with this _oh so mortifying_ revelation.

“Sorry, dude,” Hunk shrugged, looking up from where he’d been scrolling through his girlfriend’s Instagram photos, “he was pretty obvious about it. Oh, and he asked me for your number too.”

“Hah!” Pidge cried, mirth twinkling in golden eyes as she—very responsibly—took a sip of vodka-Red Bull.

Shiro had ultimately given up on arguing with her about whether or not she should drink, considering the fact that she was underage, and both of them had come to the consensus that he was not actually her father (she already had one of those, thanks) and so she could drink if she agreed not to go anywhere alone for the night. Sometimes Hunk would drive her to his apartment for gaming marathons, or she would walk with Lance to get food and then crash, or she and Keith would head to his place to finish discussions of the supernatural, but most of the time she would pass out on Shiro’s couch in the middle of a movie.

“I didn’t outright turn him down. What if he thought I was into him?” Lance groaned into the rim of his blue glass. (They all had their own glasses at Shiro’s apartment. They spent a lot of time there.) “Why doesn’t anyone cute ever try to take me home?” He moaned dramatically. “Just once I’d like it to be a hot babe, or some guy that looks like he models for Calvin Klein.”

Keith suppressed an annoyed sigh and pointedly ignored the other’s apparently preferred brand of underwear, which he coincidentally happened to be sporting at the moment. There Lance went again, lamenting about his _oh so terrible_ sex life that everyone knew just a bit too much about, as if he didn’t catch the attention of many, many attractive people. Keith was a bit too pleased when Pidge chucked a couch pillow at Lance’s face, who narrowly managed not to wear his drink by maneuvering the glass out of harm’s way. A pity, really, because he’d probably look good in cranberry.

And wow, maybe Keith should slow down; how many drinks had he had?

He chanced a glance up, catching a particularly interesting view of the length of Lance’s bare neck and the underside of his jaw. He wondered how it would look with petals of violet painted across that tanned flesh, how it would feel if he sunk his teeth into it.

Scratch that—he needed another drink.

He promptly downed the rest of his Jack and Coke, sliding off of the stool with purpose. “Anyone want anything?” He offered, taking Hunk’s raised yellow glass and Shiro’s empty beer bottle with him as he made for the kitchen.

Hunk was easy; he didn’t typically drink a lot, but on a night like tonight, he liked his whiskey and Coke just as much as Keith himself did. If they were at a bar though, he’d go for a nice cocktail or a round of green tea shots. Shiro was even easier; Keith just had to crack open another Yuengling, and the bar key was already left out on the counter. Beer was typically his drink of choice, but he’d drink wine if you forced him to. Keith pulled the fridge open, grabbing a bottle from the open case of beer on the bottom shelf before grabbing the two-liter of Coca Cola.

“So, should I order pizza or do you guys want me to make something?” Hunk piped up, and his kindness truly was unmatched if he was genuinely offering to cook them something at one in the morning.

Keith poured a cute little splash of Jack Daniels into Hunk’s cup, drowning it in Coke before mixing it with a coffee stirrer. He knew the drummer well enough to know that he didn’t particularly want to taste the alcohol in his mixed drinks. _‘If I wanted to taste liquor, I’d do shots’_ , he would say. To each his own, Keith supposed. He preferred to taste the alcohol; something about the trail that burned down his throat and to his stomach was cathartic.

He made quick work of opening Shiro’s beer before finally pouring himself a generous amount of neat whiskey, no mixer. It had become one of those nights, and really, he could probably use the awareness of precisely what he was putting into his body. Mixed drinks were a sneaky way of getting plastered; he wanted the full experience tonight.

“There’s not really anything to cook,” Shiro admitted grimly, making a negative face at the thought of his kitchen’s contents. Judging by his expression and what little could be gathered from his refrigerator (butter, cheese, half of a head of lettuce, and two cases of beer), he’d been doing a lot of eating out lately. “I’ll pay if you want to order pizza.”

“And I’d hurry if I were you,” Pidge chirped, sucking her beverage through a lime green swirly straw. “Domino's closes at two.”

Keith brought Hunk and Shiro their drinks before returning to his own seat, just in time for Lance to start whining again. “Can we please get something other than Domino’s? I’ve been living off of it for weeks.”

Hunk gasped, appalled. “I did not go through the torture of teaching you how to cook for you to be living off of Domino’s.”

The man in question laughed nervously, hand raising to scratch at the back of his shoulder. “Well, I’ve been cooking breakfast a lot, but I haven’t had time to make dinner.” He amended, still eyeing a suspicious Hunk wearily as though he could smell the obvious lies as well as his fear. “Can we get Papa John’s instead? They have that hamburger pizza thing with the pickles that somehow works.”

Pidge audibly gagged. “No, do not order that,” she urged as though the thought of it offended her very composition. “It’s a disgrace to pizza. I should know, I’m Italian.”

“Just tell me what you guys want.” Hunk sighed, staring at his phone almost helplessly at this point. He knew this was going to turn into an entire argument—especially with all of them in a comfortable state of tipsy.

Keith didn’t really care what they ordered. He was sure there would be at least one pepperoni pizza if Shiro had any say in anything, so he could eat that if all else failed. He turned his attention back to his drink, sloshing it once and letting the poignant smell strike him before he took an eager sip.

Lance loomed over his shoulder in intrigue, apparently no longer focused on the full-on Papa John’s discourse happening between an animated Pidge and an exasperated Hunk. Honestly, that much was comical, being that they should have had this figured out by now with all of the game nights they had.

“What’re you drinking?” Lance asked, curious.

Keith assessed his own beverage, noticing the strange tint that red glass gave to amber liquid. They all knew each other well enough to pick up on one another’s drink choices, so Lance’s question was appropriate considering that Keith’s drink wasn’t much, much darker, as it normally should be. “Whiskey,” he replied easily, lifting his glass with a sly smirk, “want some?”

“Straight whiskey?” Lance asked, scrunching up his nose as though offended. “Ugh, no. I might cut myself on your _edges_.”

There was that term again: edges. Edges, he’d learned, were something that ‘edgy’ people had—what he had yet to learn was the exact definition of ‘edgy’. Apparently, regularly wearing leather and owning a Harley made him edgy. Whatever.

He shrugged at Lance’s intended jab, whiskey pulling at his shirt collar and making him a bit more docile than usual, and he maintained eye contact as he took another straight-faced swig of his drink. Lance’s face distorted in disgust, flinching and forfeiting their impromptu staring contest. Keith smirked to himself. The whiskey tasted like shit, but Lance didn’t need to know that.

“I can’t believe you can drink that.” Lance continued, apparently intent on getting a rise out of the other. “You have terrible taste.”

 _Yeah, maybe_ , Keith didn’t say, because he wasn’t thinking about his drink. “I’ve watched you funnel tequila.” He replied instead, voice flat although he did have to admit that it had been kind of impressive and strangely attractive. That is, until Lance fled the room about an hour later to revisit his lunch in the toilet. “Don’t talk to me about having bad taste.”

“Don’t say that like it wasn’t one of the top five coolest things I’ve ever done,” Lance retorted, somehow genuinely offended that he’d been called out for such a ludicrous act. Honestly, it was a wonder he hadn’t been hospitalized that night. Keith took another gulp of his drink, letting the heat burn holes into his throat as it traveled down.

“What are the other four?” Pidge asked, apparently finished with the pizza discourse and ready to instigate. She really must have been feeling her liquor; usually she would do anything to keep Lance from bragging on himself. Now, she was practically begging him to boast.

“One time I caught a fly between my pinky and my ring finger, let it go, and then caught it again the same way.” He announced with such genuine pride that it was almost cute, and wow, _cute_? Keith finished off his drink in two awful, searing gulps and slipped into the kitchen for another. “Someone tried to trip me in the lunchroom at my high school and I did a round-off back-handspring.”

“Oh, I remember that one!” Hunk cheered, “That actually was, like, one of the smoothest things I’ve ever seen.”

Lance nodded, clearly proud of himself. How he managed to perform acrobatics without eating shit was beyond comprehension, seeing as he once missed a step going down the stairs, managed not to fall on his face, only to promptly trip over his own feet and fall on a completely level sidewalk about thirty whole seconds later. He interrupted his own story telling to lean back from his perch atop the counter, holding his cup toward Keith. “You mind?”

“I got it,” he assured, taking the cup and doing his best to ignore the stupid, charming sunshine-smile the other allotted him in response. Lance was reaching the flirtatious stage in his drunkenness, which meant that he would soon enter stage two: dangerous.

“I streaked across my college campus on a dare and got a date out of it,” he continued, and Keith didn’t bother fighting the eye roll at that. Only Lance. “And the last one is X-rated, between me and the other person involved.”

Pidge groaned as he wiggled his hips suggestively, tongue hanging out of his mouth like some stereotypical frat boy. “Ack, disgusting.” She exclaimed, which only proved to make him laugh. They should’ve expected as much.

“What about you, Keith? What are your top five coolest moments?” Lance asked, shifting his position to watch the man in question pour a healthy amount of vodka into his blue cup, just the way he liked it. “Bet mine are cooler.”

Keith shrugged, screwing the cap back on the bottle of McCormick’s and setting it down on the counter. “Haven’t really thought about it.” He wouldn’t exactly classify Lance’s question as something he was asked frequently… or ever.

“Oh, come on, _Lindo_. There has to be something.” Lance prodded, the bit of liquor in his system showing in the nickname he chose. Keith still didn’t know what that meant, but he knew Lance only used it when he was drinking. “Just one story, then.”

“Have you told them about the time you outran the cops?” Shiro piped up, calling everyone’s attention to him. “Not that I approve, and that definitely wasn’t cool…” he gave Pidge a stern look, “but it was kind of cool.”

“You did what?” Lance asked, gaping. The borderline suggestiveness in his gaze fizzled, once again replaced by that defensiveness born from his dire need to feel superior.

Keith sighed, sliding Lance his drink across the island top as he returned from the kitchen with his own. “No, I haven’t told that story,” he glared at Shiro. He didn’t like to talk about that story—it didn’t end nearly as glamorously as people liked to imagine it did. Shiro gave him a half-apologetic look.

He glanced between the others, seeing the intrigue painted brashly over Pidge and Hunk’s faces, and the reluctant curiosity peeking behind Lance’s scowl. No way around it, he supposed.

“I was drinking with some friends in this abandoned mall. Someone saw us sneak in and they called the cops. They barricaded our only way out, so I smashed a window and we scaled down the back of the building. They caught us climbing down and we ran.” He explained, leaving it at that. He didn’t mention how he cut open his hand and his legs on broken glass in the process, or how he hid alone in the woods for a couple hours with open wounds, paranoid that the police would find him.

“Big deal,” Lance huffed, rolling his eyes. “I could’ve done that too.”

“So why don’t you?” Pidge challenged, leaning up from her position sprawled across the couch as though she had some divine epiphany.

Lance intelligently responded, “Huh?”

Pidge ignored him, turning her attention to Keith with a now-devilish grin. The glint in her eyes was dangerous, and he knew all too well to tread cautiously. “Keith, did they tear down the mall or is it still there?”

“It’s there,” he answered, but not without hesitation. He could always lie, but then Pidge would just find something even more stupid and reckless for them to do. They’d successfully awoken her mischief-mode. Keith fully blamed Shiro.

“Alright then, why don’t you break into the abandoned mall, Lance?” She challenged, and Keith heaved a sigh. Saw that one coming. No way would Lance McClain ever back down from a challenge, especially not when it was something Keith himself had done.

“No.” Shiro decided, cutting Lance off mid-puff of his chest before he could ever belt out some snappy remark about doing it easily, and much cooler than Keith. Honestly, sometimes he sounded like such a kid, despite the fact that he had recently turned 21.

“Aw, come on, Shiro.” Lance whined, absently mixing his drink with the stirrer Keith hadn’t bothered to take out. Sometimes Lance liked to sip his drink through the stirrer, and it was maybe kinda really cute.

“Yeah, don’t you ever do anything fun?” Pidge prodded. “I know you’re like thirty—“

“ _Twenty-nine_.” Shiro interrupted, scowling.

“—but I’m sure you can still kick it with the hooligans for a night. Be a cool dad, Shiro.”

Hunk decided to pipe up, raising his hand as though it was necessary for him to announce that he was going to speak. “Uh, I actually agree with Shiro. It’s kind of a stupid idea, and Keith already got caught doing it once.”

“Then I’ll just have to be stealthier than Keith was.” Lance announced. It was too late, his mind was already made up on the matter. Any further attempts to discourage him would only end up doing the exact opposite. “Show me the abandoned mall, Shawshank.”

Keith arched a brow. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he pointed out, considering that Keith had never been to prison, and beyond that, Shawshank was the name of the prison in the movie, not the main character.

“Whatever, just take me to the dumb mall.” Lance griped, somewhere between tipsy and not drunk enough. He remedied that by taking a large gulp of his drink, staring at it appreciatively when he realized Keith made it to his tastes.

“Right now?” Hunk asked, looking a bit stressed by the whole situation. “I just ordered pizza, and it’s pretty late.”

“Well, it would be stupid to go during the daytime.” Pidge countered, obviously enjoying the idea of exploring an abandoned mall a bit too much. Luckily she hadn’t brought her penny board to Shiro’s, or else they might end up staying at the gutted out shopping-plex all night. “Pizza first, then we’ll go.”

“We?” Lance repeated, looking around at the group as though he genuinely thought that Keith would escort him to the mall and leave him to break in by his lonesome.

Shiro sighed something long and full of regret. It served him right, truly. “Yeah,” he managed, “I guess I’m in. Someone has to make sure you don’t get arrested.”

“Yes!” Pidge cheered, obviously excited that her master plan had come to fruition. Honestly, Keith was beginning to think that the biggest conspiracy of them all was that Pidge always got what she wanted. She could even bend Shiro’s iron will.

“I guess I’ll go,” Hunk added, admitting defeat. “But if things go south, you can all explain to Shay why I’m in jail.”

Keith could honestly care less, but he was obligated to show them where they were going. Well, that was his excuse if anyone asked. In truth, he could probably just Google it and text Lance the address, but he was finally drunk enough and the prospect of doing something stupid and risky was intriguing. What the hell, maybe they’d even have fun.

 

* * *

 

 

Well, they made it. Currently, they were staring at the dead, hollowed out remnants of what was once a lively marketplace, contemplating the best mode of entry. As if it hadn’t already been clear before, the gentle sting of autumn’s breath cut through their collective drunken haze, reminding them all on a more sober note that this was fucking stupid. Unfortunately, that sober thought was a fleeting one—alcohol was clearly winning out this round. Assurance that they were being dumb and reckless was not enough to shake the desire to get inside the building.

“This was where I went in before,” Keith announced a bit too loudly, words slipping through liquored lips much more easily than normal.

He stared up at the section of the building that had been boarded up with sheets of plywood, rocking from his heels to the balls of his feet with gloved hands shoved deep in the pockets of his midriff-baring jacket. As with every other part of the building within reach, the boards were tagged from one end to the other in crude drawings, song lyrics, and of course, dicks. He tried not to think about the fact that the species currently considered ‘top of the food chain’ was also the very same species that felt the need to draw poor renditions of male genitalia on, quite literally, everything. Then again, it was kind of funny. Or maybe he was really drunk.

“Bummer,” Hunk replied sarcastically, his hands wrapped tightly around his upper arms due to the night’s chill. He’d never been a fan of the cold, or the heat for that matter. Keith couldn’t blame him—he probably didn’t look much better. “Guess we have to go home now.”

“No way,” Lance declared, somehow remaining impervious to the cold. It was a little frustrating, Keith would admit, to see him standing there looking perfectly unbothered by the hellacious chill. Maybe it was his jacket; it certainly looked warm enough.

Keith forced himself to stop thinking about burying his arms in the lining of Lance’s jacket, and subsequently the fact that he’d be hugging him if he did so. “There might be another way,” he mused, face a bit weary as though he was almost apologetic for even suggesting it, “but it’s really sketchy.”

“Of course,” Hunk groaned, drawing out the soft ‘O’. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“How sketchy is really sketchy, Keith?” Shiro implored, somehow remaining surprisingly good-natured about the entire situation. Perhaps it was the beer. Still, Shiro was the only one asking the real questions.

“Parking garage elevator shaft?” He offered, having the decency to sound at least a little sheepish.

“Dude, yes.” Lance agreed, his voice nearly reaching a shout, and it was clear that he’d finally hit the stage of drunk where he was pure flirt and danger, but mostly flirting with danger. “Let’s do that.”

“Well, it’s an idea,” Pidge started, offering not even the vaguest hint of praise for what Lance had already decided was a genius plan. “But what about that window you smashed? Couldn’t we get in through there, provided it’s not boarded up?”

“Or, you know, a fire escape or something. We could go in from the roof.” Hunk suggested, likely intent on finding the safest route to take.

“Climbing the outside of the building probably isn’t the best idea if we don’t want to get caught.” Shiro pointed out as though they weren’t staring intently at an abandoned mall at nearly three in the morning, loudly discussing their plans to infiltrate the premises. “I think we should check out the parking garage first and then explore our other options.”

Lance let out a celebratory ‘ _whoop_ ’, obviously pleased that his favorite option had been chosen. Keith merely nodded, ignoring Pidge’s grimace and Hunk’s sigh as he moved to escort them around the building to the parking garage’s entrance. It was dark, prompting the group to pull out their phones to use as flashlights. It might’ve even been a bit creepy if they weren’t drunk and on a mission to break into the mall.

The stairs were, as one could imagine, locked. Hunk solidified that assumption by yanking on the door carefully labeled ‘stairs’, sighing in defeat when the lock caught and the clang of metal against metal echoed through the empty garage. The once operational elevator was only a few feet away, the doors to the shaft partially ajar while the car itself sat at the very bottom of the passage. There was a space just large enough for them to squeeze through the shaft doors and mount the top of the car, leaving them at the mercy of a clear elevator shaft.

Keith hadn’t ever taken this way before, hadn’t ever needed to, but he’d stumbled upon it years ago. Honestly, he was surprised that they hadn’t boarded it up, but they probably figured it was too much work to get in that way.

“There,” Keith pointed, his arm moving a bit slower than it probably should have. His finger was aimed at the allotted space where they should be able to slip through in order to reach the first floor. “See? Not so bad.”

“Maybe not for you.” Hunk countered, eyeing the rig with a generous amount of skepticism. “How am I supposed to fit through there and push myself up? I’m not flexible like you guys.”

“Well—” Shiro started, taking a few steps in order to further inspect the space between the elevator shaft doors. It was wide enough for him to fit through comfortably, but climbing might prove to be a bit of a nuisance, as Hunk had suggested. He pressed his back against one door, his arms and one leg against the other. “Maybe I can shove it open a little more.”

Hunk nodded, catching his drift and moving to pull at one side. Keith and Lance came to pull at the other not long after, leaving a drunkenly dazed Pidge to rock back and forth on her heels, sucking vodka-Red Bull out of a repurposed water bottle with a straw like it was a juice box. The four of them managed to pry the doors open an additional four inches, which was a bit of a disappointment.

“Something’s better than nothing.” Shiro sighed, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to wiggle his way through the moderately prohibiting space in order to mount the elevator.

“Here,” Pidge started, formulating some tactful plan for the lot of them to execute, “Keith and Lance can probably get through the easiest. Keith should go first so that he can help from inside while Lance goes last to help from the outside.” Her proposal was pretty solid. “Keith, then Hunk, then Shiro, then me, and then Lance.”

“That’s a pretty good idea.” Keith agreed. “Alright, let’s do this.”

He slipped through the shaft doors with ease, thankful for the small step between the doors and the elevator car. His lithe frame certainly proved to be doing him a favor during this task. He shoved his phone into his back pocket, not bothering to turn the flashlight off when he would need it again in just a few minutes. His hands gripped the top of the car, which was probably around chin height, and he jumped, pitching his torso forward so that he wouldn’t hit his head on the doorframe. His feet sought purchase against the elevator car, shoes slipping a bit against the slick metal doors, but he managed to straighten his arms and hoist himself up rather quickly.

Once he was perched, arms straight and hips even with the top of the car, he maneuvered one leg up onto the platform, kept his chest forward, and shoved himself wholly into the shaft. It probably looked a bit awkward, but he was suddenly thankful for the daughter of the foster parents he’d stayed with who had been in gymnastics and the stretches she’d practically forced upon him. Now, from his vantage point, he could easily see the first floor and the best route to reaching it.

“Hey, guys,” he called, his voice echoing in the mostly-hollow elevator shaft, “looks like we got lucky. There’s a ladder built into the wall for maintenance.” That was a pleasant surprise. Sure, he’d known the elevator existed and was one way to get inside, but he’d never actually had to come in that way. He hadn’t ever really needed to when there were gaping holes in the walls, which were now boarded up and tagged.

“Thank god,” Hunk responded, truly grateful that they wouldn’t have to find a way to scale the inside of an elevator shaft. They weren’t exactly designed to be climbed manually, after all.

Keith stopped to his knees, grabbing the inside of the shaft with one hand to keep anchored while the other extended into the parking garage. “Okay, Hunk. You’re up.”

After some struggle, a significant amount of hushed bickering, and eventual success, the group was finally stationed on the first floor, looking around the gutted mall. It was rather unimpressive—just about every inch of the building was tagged with spray paint, and aside from several pieces of plywood, empty paint buckets, and a few abandoned camps that likely belonged to the homeless at one point or other, there wasn’t much to speak of. Not to mention, it smelled incredibly stale.

“This was your coolest moment?” Lance jabbed playfully, nudging Keith with an elbow in a way that was more friendly than spiteful.

“I thought running from the police was supposed to be the ‘cool’ part of that story.” He clarified, highlighting the fact that ‘cool’ was being used loosely by forming quotation marks with his fingers.

“We can call them if you want,” Pidge offered with a snicker. She took a stumbling step back, somehow losing her balance purely by standing there. Keith couldn’t help but think that the alcohol was treating her a bit too well.

Shiro must have agreed, because he swiped her drink. She protested, swatting at his arm when he held the bottle up and out of her reach. It wasn’t until she tried to physically climb him like he was a jungle gym that he decided chugging the rest of her drink would be the best way to handle the scenario. Keith grimaced—Pidge’s drinks would increase in alcohol and decrease in mixer as the night went on, and he was fairly certain that McCormick’s tasted the same as acetone.

“You’re despicable,” Pidge hissed, though her words were slurred. “Absolutely abhorrent. Dreadful.”

“That drink was criminal.” Shiro replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as though it would rid the taste from his tongue. From the look of disgust on his face, he had no such luck.

“Hey, what’s that?” Hunk asked, shining his phone’s flashlight application toward the wall.

Oh. Oh no. Keith nearly groaned aloud once he realized what the other was pointing at. It had been so long that he’d genuinely forgotten all about it, and honestly, he was surprised to see that it hadn’t been tagged over.

On the wall was a decent sized mural-style painting of a lion, done entirely in the same shade of bright red spray paint. It had been his ongoing project for a while, up until the night he and his friends had been caught. That lion was the only thing he’d ever been able to draw successfully. He was no artist, could barely draw stick figures, but he’d thought the picture was pretty cool in middle school. He would draw it, and redraw it, and redraw it, until it finally started coming out half-decent. Even now, he’d draw it on napkins at work when the bar wasn’t busy.

“Hey, that looks familiar.” Lance declared, taking oddly timed steps up to the wall in order to shine his phone light directly on it. He popped a hip, one hand resting on it.

Keith swallowed a groan, his drunk brain telling him to flee the situation immediately. He promptly turned, wordlessly stating his lack of interest, and started looking in the direction of the escalators.

Much to his chagrin, Pidge and her overly analytical self decided to comment. “Yeah, it looks like that thing Keith draws all the time.”

He paused. Damn. Now they were all looking at him accusingly. Might as well get this over with. “Yeah, I did it. So what?”

Lance was the first to break into giggles. “Man, you’re so edgy.”

Pidge and Hunk were the next to start, eventually followed with a snort from a now sufficiently intoxicated Shiro, which he gracelessly attempted to cover by coughing into his arm.

Keith bristled. “I was like fifteen, okay?”

Lance continued to snicker, only pausing to issue a quick, “Sure, Jan.” Inebriated Lance enjoyed referencing memes even more than sober Lance did. It probably should’ve annoyed Keith more than it did.

Rather than continue subjecting himself to that particular brand of humiliation, Keith set out to find his way to the next floor. He missed the flash and shutter sound of Lance’s phone camera, his attention focused primarily on dodging broken glass, rusted nails, and a skateboard that had been snapped in half. He wondered if people still came here from time to time, or if the boards and posted warnings boasting jail time or serious fines had effectively scared everyone off.

Each step seemed to echo in the hollowed shell of a shopping center, every word whispered equating to a siren, and every breath a full conversation. The others had chosen to split up and take their time exploring on their own, alcohol pulling at their sleeves and taking them in every direction they found fascinating. He could hear their footsteps, the occasional crunch of glass or ‘slap’ of a wooden board that hadn’t been flush against the floor.

Keith found the escalators, scaling them cautiously with heed to liquored shoelaces, and found himself searching for a way up to the third floor. It was strange, really, coming back here after so many years. It was a reminder of how far he’d come, how much he’d endured, how many people had come and gone.

Before long, he found himself staring out of a smashed window on the third floor, reminded of how he’d taken a stray piece of piping and driven it into the thick slab of glass over, and over, and over. He remembered young voices whisper-shouting at him to hurry up, and he remembered the way frantic hands had nearly sent him plummeting down three stories to the concrete in their haste to escape fast approaching footsteps. He remembered looking back, only for a moment, to see his friends getting tackled to the ground while he got away on nimble feet.

He still felt horrible about that. He should’ve been caught too—he’d been in the wrong just as they had. How come he managed to get off scot-free?

He thought of other things instead, his mind catching on the clear bell-chime of Pidge’s raucous drunken laughter two stories below. Seeing her so genuinely happy and carefree was such a breath of fresh air, though the instances were few, far between, and often fueled by spirits. She was notorious for hardly sleeping—she worked too much, was practically addicted to keeping herself busy, because she didn’t want to stop for too long and think about her missing brother, or how he could be lost behind enemy lines, or a prisoner of war, or worse. She kept herself going one-hundred miles per hour, had since they met all those years ago. Keith worried about her a lot.

War—the thing that had taken Pidge’s brother, and the thing that had taken Shiro’s arm. The source of Shiro’s somehow-well-contained PTSD. He didn’t talk about it. He didn’t talk about Matt, his long lost best friend and Pidge’s brother. He kept himself glued together perfectly. Except for when he didn’t.

Hunk wasn’t much better off in the department of mental health. He had more anxiety than he knew what to do with, which often led to nausea and panic. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, he also had a deep-seated compulsion to believe that every move he made was either wrong or simply not good enough. Despite it all, he kept everything hidden behind a sunshine-smile and constant concern for his friends, busying himself with their problems so that he could distract himself from his own. He had been graced with the patience of a saint, if only thanks to his habitual internalization of everything, everything, everything.

And Lance—

The hand on his back pulled him from the depth of his musings, dripping violets shifting to meet a curious azure. “Something on your mind?”

Lance. He was deeply insecure, something he had been able to hide well for quite some time. His insecurities were the source of his severe inferiority complex, and the reason he fought so hard and so recklessly to prove himself at every turn. He was depressed, longing for a time when his family had gotten along so smoothly. It was the worst kind of homesickness, because at the end of the day, the only thing that had changed was that he’d grown old enough to understand that everything was not so perfect in his house. He wished for something that hadn’t truly been there—he wished for naivety, a false sense of security and warmth born of a child’s ignorance.

And yet, he was a fire starter. He burned bright, offering jovial smiles and bringing a radiant form of joy to all he encountered. It was fascinating, really, to watch the room light up once he stepped inside it.

And while it was true that he would often pick fights with Keith out of fear of being less than, there were also moments like these; moments where he was softer, more kind, like he cared.

“Everything,” he answered through an exhale, offering a genuine smile.

Lance’s face heated to a rosy hue, probably flushed from the alcohol, and he shifted his gaze to stare out of the busted window. There was dried blood, now a deep brown, staining the floor just below the window from where Keith’s leg had been gashed open. Lance’s eyes dropped to it for a moment, but he didn’t mention it.

“Hey,” he started, voice a touch hesitant, before his head picked up to the sky again, “mind if I crash at your place tonight? I’m getting tired and it’s a long walk to mine.”

Keith nodded, still watching Lance as he assessed the night sky. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Neither commented on the fact that Keith’s apartment was probably twice the distance of Lance’s parents’ house.

**Author's Note:**

> Slow chapter, but I had so much fun writing it? It feels weird to write something calm and not 100% angst, but it also feels kinda nice to give myself a break from being an evil shit.
> 
> Feel free to come chat with me at nocentis on Tumblr. It’s my RP blog for Jellal Fernandes, but I use my IM’s a lot.


End file.
